Sketch by Daniel Alekow
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Emily Ding
I write about the interconnections between people, animals, and places—to make sense of our rapidly changing world and our place in it, and how we can better co-exist.
I’ve been feeling a desire to experiment with storytelling forms beyond journalism and nonfiction, and am trying to make some headway on a couple of personal projects.
While in pursuit, I’m also reading, walking and exploring, documenting, or seeking out the experiences and affinities of others to inform my ideas, some of which I share on my newsletter, Movable Worlds.
Meanwhile, I am still taking freelance or part-time writing, reporting, research, and editing work—for editorial, nonprofit, and commercial clients. Please get in touch to discuss possibilities of working together.
I’ve been a journalist, photographer, and editor—on staff and as a freelancer—for more than a decade. Perpetually drawn by a vivid sense of place, my stories have ranged across varied themes—humans vs. nature; travel, migration & culture; memory culture & the legacies of conflict—and been published in both news and literary media.
As a former columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review, I contributed a series of narrative nonfiction as braided Instagram stories. I have also written personal and critical essays for the Mekong Review.
My news features have been published in places like Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, Public Radio International, Vice Asia, South China Morning Post, Foreign Policy, Slate, Roads & Kingdoms, Wired UK, New Naratif, Esquire Singapore and Malaysia, and Malaysiakini.
Some of this work was supported by the Pulitzer Center, the National Geographic Society/Out of Eden Walk, and the Fuller Project.
Before I went freelance in 2015, I was the Associate Editor at Esquire Malaysia (which was one of the global outposts of Esquire magazine). Before that, I reported for a stint at The Malaysian Insider in the run-up to the 13th general elections, before it shut down.
At various times, I have done research and factchecking work for TV documentaries (which have been broadcast on National Geographic Asia, History Asia, and Netflix), managed an online literary magazine in London, edited news and feature stories for small Southeast Asian publications, and written travel and commercial copy.
REPORTED nonfiction
The Provenance Detective (Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 98/2)
Lonely Hearts Club (VQR, vol. 97/1)
Fossil Combing (VQR, vol. 96/1)
This Land Is Our Land (VQR, vol. 95/2)
The Remained (VQR, vol. 95/1)
Memory Wars (VQR, vol. 94/3)
The Wild Wild West, in Spain (Roads & Kingdoms)
A New Hope (R&K+Slate)
personal & critical ESSAYS
A Family Under Occupation (Mekong Review #36)
Peering Around Riverbends (MR #32)
Ways of Writing (MR #24)
Echo in Sahara (MR #20)
Homing Pigeon (MR #15)
Travelling alone as a woman (The Lily/Washington Post)
Killer Fish for Breakfast (Roads & Kingdoms)
Aunties of Chinatown, Guatemala City (GeoEx)
On human-animal conflict
When the wrong bat met the wrong pig (South China Morning Post magazine)
Can plantations value more than profit? (Al Jazeera)
The vivid ‘waving’ frog that vanished suddenly (The Guardian)
Is there still a chance to save the Malayan tiger? (Al Jazeera)
Pygmies in Peril (Esquire Malaysia)
On migration & conflict
Anti-human trafficking apps were meant to save lives. They’re failing. (Wired)
Malaysia’s Coronavirus Scapegoats (Foreign Policy)
‘A chance to do something meaningful’: the refugee chefs feeding health workers (The Guardian)
Fast friends, Rohingya refugees in exile rebuild lives in Malaysia (PRI The World)
Beyond the Sea (Esquire Malaysia)
On women’s rights
Women’s Public Testimonies in Malaysia Reveal Persisting Gaps in Gender Equality (Heinrich Böll Stiftung)
New sexual harassment bill edges closer to law in Malaysia (Al Jazeera)
Teen murder charge shows ‘gaps’ in Malaysia’s treatment of girls (Al Jazeera)
Malaysia’s sexist citizenship. law is keeping families apart (Foreign Policy)
On politics & justice
In Malaysia, young people find their voice amid a pandemic (Al Jazeera)
After virus outbreak tied to religious event, Malaysian puts the brakes on Ramadan (Washington Post)
Life, death, and the in-between (New Naratif)
In the last room (Esquire Malaysia)
On travel, place & culture
Custodians of the forests between land and sea (Between the Lines)
Petaling Street, the ‘Chinatown’ of Malaysia’s capital, bets on its heritage for a modern revival (SCMP)
In Malaysia, one of the world’s oldest rainforests awaits (CNN)
16 Baris is a Youtube Cypher Show That's Reviving Malaysian Hip-hop (Vice Asia)
On history & memory
A ‘White Rajah’ returns to Malaysia’s Sarawak, but this time to serve (SCMP)
Former Leprosy Patients Search for Children They Were Forced to Give Up (The Malaysian Insider)
Dispatches on the Batang Kali massacre (The Malaysian Insider)
personal GEOGRAPHIES
I grew up in Malaysia, went to university in England to study Law (and some History), spent a handful of seasons in Latin America, returned to Malaysia, and more recently began an acquaintance with Germany. I remain ever curious about all the places I’ve been, and all the places I’ve never been.
mother tongues, adopted tongues
Like many Malaysians of Chinese descent whose families have lived for generations in Malaysia, English is my first language (it’s the one I’m most proficient in—British colonisation and all that). I studied at a Chinese-language primary school and grew up learning Mandarin, Malay, and English, with Mandarin as the main language of instruction (as in: History, Geography, Math, etc. were taught in Mandarin). Following that, I enrolled in a secondary school where Malay was the main language of instruction, then headed abroad to university in England, where English was of course the medium of instruction.
Throughout these years, I read mainly English-language books and watched English-language movies (more American than British, such was the power of American global hegemony), which explains my dominant proficiency in the language. But being multilingual has helped me ease my way into different geographical and cultural contexts, which has been helpful on both a personal and professional level. I also speak Spanish, though not as fluently as I once did, and I’m currently taking B1-level German.
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